It's All Politics

5:05 pm

Thu February 9, 2012

At CPAC, Hard Lines On Race And Immigration Could Be Awkward

A note to the Republican presidential candidates heading to Washington for the Conservative Political Action Conference: some of the events could make you uncomfortable if you're planning to tack to the center in your general election campaign.

One of the panel's speakers was conservative author Peter Brimelow, whose book, Alien Nation, decried America's increasing racial diversity due to immigration (legal or illegal). The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified him as a "white nationalist" and monitors his Web site, VDARE.com, as a hate group. (Brimelow, an immigrant from England, named his Web site after Virginia Dare, the first English settler born in the New World, in 1587.)

Brimelow was joined on the panel by Robert Vandervoort, whose organization, ProEnglish, sponsored the discussion. ProEnglish advocates making English the official language of the government.

Kobach advises Romney on immigration policy, which helps explain Romney's pledge to, if elected, veto the DREAM Act, which would set a path to legal status for people under age 36 who arrived illegally in the U.S. as children.

Also on the panel are two Latino Republican congressmen, Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and David Rivera, who stand at the opposite end of the spectrum on immigration. Diaz-Balart and Rivera are Cuban Americans from Florida and support the DREAM Act.

Diaz-Balart has taken criticism for overlooking Romney's immigration position to become one of his key supporter's in the battleground state. Rivera supports Newt Gingrich, who has taken a more moderate stance on immigration.

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